Newport News Police Release Annual Crime Report

More homicides, robberies and aggravated assaults in Newport News helped fuel a 4 percent increase in overall crime last year, according to a city police report released Thursday.

The 2005 annual crime report revealed the numbers of specific violent crimes and property crimes reported to the FBI.

While the city registered an overall increase in crime, there were improvements: Rape cases dropped significantly, as did burglaries and car thefts.

The increase in robberies was blamed on an increase in drug-related robberies, said police spokesman Lou Thurston.

The city's tally for last year's homicide total -- 18 -- did not include two additional killings that had been reported. Those two cases were ruled justifiable homicides and, therefore, were not required to be reported to the FBI, Thurston said.

The figures issued Thursday in the city's report differed from numbers released this year by Virginia State Police. Norma Poole, a state police crime analyst, said that the state police counts the number of victims during crimes against people, which can lead to higher totals in figures provided by state police.

For example, if two people are robbed during the same incident, state police would record two robberies, Poole said. Local jurisdictions usually report cases, or incidents, she said, so that same incident would be counted as a single crime.

The state police report also fails to weed out unfounded cases. The Virginia State Police's annual report is based solely on reports of crime.

In a prepared statement, Newport News Police Chief James D. Fox said overall crime has dropped 11 percent so far this year. He credited more organized police sweeps in high-crime areas, prostitution stings and measures such as the publication of fugitives' names in the Daily Press for helping lower crime.

"Community policing and crime prevention efforts will continue to be at the forefront of our crime fighting efforts," Fox said. *

BY THE NUMBERS

Newport News police released their annual crime report for 2005 on Thursday. Here is a breakdown of the report, compared to 2004 cases.